When I was 9 years old my father was transferred to Paris in December of 1953. The arrival of thousands of US dependents into post WWII Europe was well under way but still a bit chaotic. No schools were built yet in Paris, so I was in an elementary and high school in an old downtown building not far from the Bois de Boulogne. Infrastructure In France was still partially collapsed and the beautiful Paris buildings seemed grim. But it was Christmas, and teachers did what teachers do, and pulled off the miracle of a Christmas concert. I don’t think I had ever been to a concert before in my life. This was the first time I heard the 12 Days of Christmas, with all the accompanying hand movements and it was so unexpected, funny and fresh for me. Completely delighted.
I’m sure they performed most of the favorite Christmas carols. Then the auditorium became silent, suddenly a trumpet sounded, every person rose to their feet, and I heard the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah for the first time.
I can’t even write this without goosebumps and a tear or two. Such a powerful and unforgettable experience.
They were the best educational years of my life. All of the teachers were excellent. I remember attending 5th grade at the dependents school in Garsches, just outside of Paris. We lived in Meudon, just outside of Paris. My father was an American Army officer attending the Ecole Militaire just in back of the Eiffel Tower. The military bus would pick us up early and then circle around the city picking up other students. 1957 was the beginning of the Algerian uprisings and our bus had thick cross mesh covers on the bus windows and we had 2 armed guards on the bus. We had to stop frequently at major rond-points (roundabouts) because the French military had barricades and machine gun placements at those points. Frequently, we would get to school and within an hour or 2 be back on the bus homeward bound because of bomb threats at the school. When we were stationed at La Rochelle for 3 years we lived in Aytre housing for a year then on the economy in La Rochelle for the remaining years until we returned stateside in 1961. My father was assigned to the transportation battalion in La Rochelle. I remember that the high school students went to Poitiers during the week and returned home to LaRochelle during the weekend.
I concur heartily, being a Brat was the best, most educational period of my life. Don’t think I’ve ever really adjusted to civilian life!
This memory is in the form of a question. Are there “blank” portions in your memories? I was in Europe for approximately 2+1/2 years, 1953-1956. A subject may come up about a movie, TV show, music……I know nothing about it if it occurred during that time frame. We didn’t have a TV, The Stars & Stripes was our newspaper, didn’t have a phone. When a “ new” brat came in we were hungry for the current Hit Parade music, are people wearing white bucks shoes, rock & roll ?, hair style ….ponytail or DA? What are your blank portions?
During my father’s tour of duty in Salzburg 1952-1955, my brother and I attended the elementary school near Schloss Klessheim. These years were profound in shaping my love for music and mountains. Later in life, music became a career and as a middle aged Texan I had the time to hike many big summits in Colorado.
Looking at the yearbook photos of my 5th, 6th, and 7th grade classmates I am amazed how after 70 years, so many faces are familiar, as well as the images of my teachers, Mrs. Gibbons, Miss Schaefer, and Mr. Gallagher. I am very blessed to have had those three years living and learning in such a splendid, magical environment.
On an afternoon in mid-August 1950, emotions were running high as the troop transport, General George Goethels, slowly pulled into the port of Bremerhaven. Many of the 75 teachers abroad were feeling some anxiety at facing the unknown awaiting them as teachers for Dependent Schools in a war-torn country occupied by Allied military forces.
When I was 9 years old my father was transferred to Paris in December of 1953. The arrival of thousands of US dependents into post WWII Europe was well under way but still a bit chaotic. No schools were built yet in Paris, so I was in an elementary and high school in an old downtown building not far from the Bois de Boulogne. Infrastructure In France was still partially collapsed and the beautiful Paris buildings seemed grim. But it was Christmas, and teachers did what teachers do, and pulled off the miracle of a Christmas concert. I don’t think I had ever been to a concert before in my life. This was the first time I heard the 12 Days of Christmas, with all the accompanying hand movements and it was so unexpected, funny and fresh for me. Completely delighted.
“Navy 824” is all of the address that I can remember of Kwajalein, Marshall Islands, that was my home from 1954 to 1958. My dad received orders for this island in the Pacific, and we headed there in 1953, driving across the United States from Philadelphia to San Francisco. Since concurrent travel was not authorized for dependents, we had to wait until quarters were available. My brother and I were enrolled in public schools in San Francisco while awaiting word that we could proceed. In early 1954, the family followed when quarters on Kwajalein became available.
I was a student at the high school (both Maison Fort and Foret D’Orleans) in Orleans, France during my father’s Army service. We arrived when I was in the 6th grade in 1959, and stayed until May of 1962. Honestly, they were the best years of my life as far as being in an enchanted place, and loving the country where we were stationed.
I think the years I was there 1959-1965 were the fullest and most solid. The school seemed to be well organized and we didn’t want for much.
It is really hard to describe the mini culture that made up the school, of note was the collective nature of being “foreigners” in another country, living on a military base and all the rules that went with that, the efforts to make this a “normal” American high school experience, the sticking together as children of military, the obvious class distinction between enlisted and officers’ kids, the differences of living on or off the economy, and, of course. the microcosm of the various housing areas.
My family and I moved to Orleans in the summer of 1959. I was a student from 8th through 10th grade. The friendships I made there are still sustained today. A group of girls all started together and many left at the same time at the end of the 10th grade. I will always consider OHS my high school and have many fond memories of “the 8th grade girls” as we now call ourselves. We lost touch over the years and were ecstatic to find each other again at Dave’s first reunion in Washington DC…no one wanted to sleep we just talked and talked. My husband and I have been to most of the reunions since then and he has been added as an honorary member of the OHS family.
We were stationed in St. Nazaire, France 1956 through 1958. My dad was the Company Commander of the unit that ran the Army Port facilities in St. Nazaire. We lived in Pornichet about 50 yds from the beach. I attended the two-room school house where the principal taught 5-8 and his wife taught 1-4. We were the first pickup for the Army school bus and the last drop off. That made for a long day, but we didn’t care.
I was in Yoyogi School with Mrs. Fields for first grade, Mrs. Peck for second grade and Mrs. Gallagher for third grade. There was a water fountain marked “colored”. We went on a field trip to Hiroshima. There was a Japanese teacher who came in and taught us some Japanese characters and songs. We went to school on a bus. I still have the yearbooks from those years.
Orleans American High School. OHS. I graduated with the class of 1957, having arrived in Orleans in the early winter of 1954. We came back to the States on the USS United States in July of 1957.
There were essentially two OHS schools in the span of years from its opening until it closed in 1967: the old school and the new. It became the new OHS after it moved to an actual high school building. The old OHS, the only school I knew, was on the second story of an office building. The library was one room, math was another room, etc. There were outside stairs to the main entry.
I was at OHS 1955 to 1958. Started the eighth grade there, ninth and 10th and part of the 11th. We arrived in the summer of 1955. We lived at Combleux in a small hotel until Dad found a house on the other side of Orleans at a point in the road called Fourneau. It was on the main road from Orleans to Blois. With our school out at Maison Forte, it meant a very long bus ride both ways. Our bus left Maison Forte going down along the Loire to Beaugency. Crossing the Loire it drove through Meung-sue-Loire Eventually getting to my house and then on to Orleans and Olivet. I was so happy to get to school every day to see the other kids. We were all so spread out from one side of the city to the other. After about a year and a half, we did move to Saint Jean de Bray And this made the high school experience for me a lot more fun. Whoever didn’t live there might live at Saint Jean de la Ruelle. We could get lunch at the mess hall but I remember it being a very cold walk over there.
When Frankfurt Elementary School in Frankfurt, Germany closed in 1995, the staff compiled a booklet of memories. AOSHS is very fortunate to have a copy of this booklet. The school was open from 1946 to 1995. (more…)
My mom was apparently willing to take a chance in order to travel. Growing up in Detroit, she chose to go to college (history major) in upstate NY, and when she returned she got her Masters in special education from the University of Michigan, with an emphasis on the elementary level. After teaching in Detroit, she applied to become a DoD teacher. In 1954, her first assignment was Camp McGill Dependent School in Japan. (more…)
My family arrived in Austria in January 1947 which was the middle of 10th grade for me. We were told to remember “Ya nay goveru Paruskie” (I do not speak Russian) and “Nicht verstede Deustch” (Don’t understand German) which we were to state if we were accosted by a Russian or Austrian for being American. We rode the Austrian bus to school at HQs US Forces Austria. Our forces and families were behind the Iron Curtain and the US wanted to show Austrians they were not there to conquer Austria; they were only there to prevent Russia from overtaking Austria. The 10th, 11th, 12th, students had a special bond. We had Friday night dances at someone’s house, Saturday night Dances at T-Club and Sundays movies. In the fall of 1947 and 48 we had 17 kids on a football team. Although we lost most of our games, we had a team. Basketball was better. In fact, I managed 13 points per game. At the school the eleventh and twelfth grades were in same room as were the ninth and tenth grades. One teacher taught biology and geometry to all grades.
While in Tripoli, Libya, Air Force personnel and their dependents lived in Wheelus Air Force Base housing for the most part, but the families of men who worked for the State Department and some of its agencies, or for oil companies searching for black gold, lived in many different areas of Tripoli from Garden City to Georgimpopoli, a coastal area on the western edges of the city. Our school bus, one of many that picked up American children all over the city, traveled down Sciarra Ben Asciur on its eight-mile journey to the base. I still have a very tattered mimeographed copy of my school bus route. It did help me identify my old home on Google Earth. (more…)
FHS dorms (right) and “Quonset” huts (Silver City)Frankfurt High School
My brother and I went to the American Army schools — 9th-11th grade for me, Frankfurt High School; elementary school for Dennis. The FHS student body was 900 and included kids like me who walked to school, kids from farther away who arrived in Army buses each day, kids from even farther who lived in the dorm all week but went home on weekends, and kids from REALLY far away like Moscow or Damascus (children of diplomats in places where there were no American schools), who stayed in the dorm all semester. Although 900 sounds small to a New Yorker, it was far too much for the original 1954 building so we also had some “Quonset huts” for the overflow (strictly speaking these were Butler Buildings; real Quonset huts are half-cylinders, but it’s the same idea: prefab temporary buildings made of corrugated metal that can be erected in a few hours).
When I was in college at New Mexico Highlands University, I’d hear “Far Away Places” and in my heart I knew that song contained a secret message for me. So I started pursuing my goal of “traveling in far-away places!” I think it meant Europe.
In 1954, by then a college grad and teacher in Albuquerque, I applied for a job as a DoDDS teacher through Washington, D.C. from an article in the newspaper. Beautiful French Morocco, near Casablanca, was my first assignment. Aside from the washing machines in the BOQ’s and colorful Arabs everywhere I turned on base, it was very much like Albuquerque – warm weather, golden sunshine, and cactus plants. (more…)
We left New York City for Vienna, Austria on my thirteenth birthday, November 10, 1946.
My father had been assigned to Vienna and had left in July of 1945, so we were anxious to join him. I can’t remember his specific assignment, but he was in charge” of the American sector of Vienna, which was divided into four sectors American, French, British, and Russian, as was Berlin. He had superior officers over him so I am not sure what my mother meant when she said he was “in charge”. (more…)
After forty-two years I revisited the scenes of my youth in Vienna.
Wien, Wien, nur du Allein,
Solist Stetes die Stadt Meiner Traune Sein.
(Vienna, Vienna, of you alone, so is the city of my dreams.)
It was amazing how much, and how little, things had changed.
The first impression was of cars, people, speed, crowds, modern buildings, rebuilt old buildings and that every thing was rebuilt and a little smaller than I remembered. But then the second impression was of the same laid back atmosphere I remembered.
The best of intentions were mine, when I began this ocean voyage, to write a day-by-day account of my feelings and the happenings. But along with many other things, I had planned on this trip when I left home, have had to fall by the wayside. It would simply be unable for me to explain why. Anyone would have to be on this trip to understand. You made the remark before I left home that now that we were leaving not to look back. That is good advice but extremely difficult to follow. (more…)
An icebreaker frequently employed with Dependent School educators was to ask the question, How did you manage to get overseas?” The answers usually provided a fascinating tale. Most came by chance, and I was no exception.
I was teaching sixth grade in Los Angeles while my wife, Beverly, was teaching in Redondo Beach. With our combined salaries in 1955, we were relatively prosperous and content with our lot in life. Going overseas was the furthest thing from my mind. One Sunday Beverly spotted an article in the Los Angeles Times that provided the information that both the Army and the Air Force were recruiting teachers for overseas positions. I was not interested and even if I was interested, I didn’t relish completing the necessary forms. Beverly was not eligible as kindergartens were not part of the Dependent Schools program in those days. Only after much cajoling, Beverly convinced me to at least try for a position as long as she would complete the paperwork and set up the necessary appointments. (more…)
